Long conversations

I'm gradually becoming more familiar with this place. In the last week, I have had 3 long and somewhat in depth conversations. One of which was totally in Chinese, one was me speaking Chinese, and the other was in good old English. Due to the Ghost Festival, which seems to reach its peak next week, Jilong is beautiful at night because they've put up all sorts of lanterns and outdoor lights, they're what we call Christmas lights, but they're not for Christmas. Anyway, my former roommate and I walked up to Zhongzheng Park and sat on the swings and discussed weird things about our respective jobs. It's been windy and sort of cool, so I've heard that there might be two typhoons on the way.

On the weekend, Shuqin invited me upstairs and we had a long discussion about the family situation, as well as marriage in Taiwan and a daughter-in-law's role in the family. I asked her if Taiwanese women generally got married twice and she said that they could but people would say bad things about her. She also said that some husband will help their wives with children but some won't and that her husband, as I have observed, does not. However, she said that she was also lucky because they were generally good people.

I also had dinner again with my TA Ann, in which I think I talked for about an hour in Chinese about Asian Americans and the term FOB, as well as the availability of peaches in Washington, why Western Washington doesn't get much snow, the difference between snow and hail. I also got to talk her to talk about Christianity and her beliefs about it.

I'm not sure whether my Chinese is getting better or whether I'm just more willing to talk. For example, I tried mostly unsuccessfully to explain the concept of Native Americans to Ann. Here's what I remember of what I said, "Bai ren lai Meiguo yiqian, tamen zhuzai Meiguo." Before white people came to America, they lived in America." This didn't get it across, so I said "Zai Taiwan, you yixie de ren, bushi huaren. Huaren lai Taiwan yiqian tamen zhuzai Taiwan." In Taiwan there are people who aren't Chinese, before the Chinese came to Taiwan, they lived in Taiwan." This seemed to get it across a little better. Most useful word learned yesterday, gaibian or change.

Zai Taiwan wo gaibian hen duo.